A New York based photographer named Danny Evans has put together a collection of Photoshopped images imagining what celebrities might look like if they were overweight, and “ugly,” or, in a word, “normal.” Ewwwwww! It’s so grosssssss! Also what is the pointttttttttt?! He says that the purpose of the project is to look at celebrities in “a different light,” and that it’s his “interpretation of how they might appear if they were never famous.” Sure, I guess. Except that it’s a very specific interpretation. For one thing, every single celebrity immediately gains at least 20 pounds. And all of their clothes come from the same Salvation Army store in 1999. These aren’t celebrities as normal people, they’re celebrities as caricatures of normal people. You might need a $147,000 beauty regimen administered by professionals to look like Jennifer Aniston on the cover of a magazine, but you don’t need that much money to look healthy and put together. It’s just a little bit confusing! I think a much more interesting exercise would actually be to take “normal” people and put them through the same celebrity machine and see how great they come out looking on the other side. A project like that would expose the celebrity-industrial complex as the fraud factory that it is, while also proving that normal people have their own inherent beauty that can be exploited and airbrushed into flawless fiction rather than some weird, misguided excuse for using the CS4 “fat tool.” Ugh. Art! Always the worst!

But I just wanted to say that I think that Gabe has exactly the correct take on this and made really good points.

The only thing uglifying pretty people accomplishes is in some way brings attention to the fact that 1.) they are so pretty that you need photoshop to make them not be sooooo much better than you, and 2.) that the artist thinks that normal people are fat and poor dressers (and that by extension since he puts some effort into his appearance he is practically a celebrity (ooooo so much social status he has!)(let’s all be pretty like him and celebrities))

Do you want to start posting your very own important comments about trampoline accidents, etc on Videogum?
Are you nervous about selecting an avatar, and in fact is the ONLY reason why you haven’t started posting?

Well then, this post is tailor-made for you!
Those photoshopped celebrity photos is a great opportunity to get yourself that ever elusive avatar! It’s a no-brainer! They already comment on pop & celebrity culture, the project misses its mark, and it’s all one big trainwreck!

THESE ARE PERFECT AVATARS FOR VIDEOGUM!
Grab one now, before they’re all gone!

It’s pretty much just brangelina photoshopped onto an 80s couple, who are probably very nice innoffensive people who just want to make their way in the world today, maybe worrying about the status of their retirement funds and whether their daughter will be able to find a job when she graduates college. And even if they are assholes who eat kitten bruschetta for brunch, it’s still dirty pool to hold them up as HEEEEEDIOUS normal people who have not won the genetic lottery

I didn’t think I could like this blog any more and then you go ahead and link the SNEETCHES!? Brilliant.

My little sister had (has) a deformed belly button from a birth defect and my dad would read this to her (and us) to make her feel better and called her his Star-Belly Sneetch. Thanks for the reminder.

Also, as a regular people who finds regular people attractive…these aren’t the regular people I know and love and sometimes sneak flirty glances and smiles but don’t have the stones to actually follow up and say hello to on public transportation. Might just be me though.

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